Election 2022: Anthony Albanese’s pledge to over-deliver

Anthony Albanese says Labor’s election strategy is to ‘under-promise’ so it can ‘over-deliver’ if it wins government on May 21.

Anthony Albanese in Willoughby in Sydney’s north on Wednesday. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Anthony Albanese says Labor’s election strategy is to “under-promise” so it can “over-deliver” if it wins government on May 21.

But responding to the Opposition Leader’s comments, Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare denied suggestions the party was running a small-target strategy, saying the ALP had a suite of policies on childcare, aged care and emissions reduction.

The comments come after the Coalition criticised Labor for running a small-target “philosophy of leadership”, with Scott Morrison using it to paint Labor as “weak” and “not up to the job”.

Campaigning in Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman’s electorate of North Sydney on Wednesday, Mr Albanese admitted Labor was not taking every policy it wanted to the election.

He said Labor’s election playbook had been constrained by the Coalition’s “trillion dollars of debt” and added he would like to see superannuation included in paid parental leave if he became prime minister.

“One of the things we’re doing at this election is under-promising so that we over-deliver,” Mr Albanese said. “We’re in a position whereby we have a trillion dollars of debt so we’re not promising to do everything that we would like to do in our first term.

“Are we in a position to promise things that might be difficult to deliver? No, we’ve been very clear and very upfront. But I also speak about the next election in three years’ time, and I want to be in a position whereby I say, we said we’d ­deliver cheaper childcare and it’s happening. We said we’d address cost of living and we’re doing that.”

When asked about Mr Albanese’s comments, Mr Clare repeatedly denied they were an indication Labor was taking a small-target approach, instead labelling the strategy as a “smart target”.

Mr Clare attacked the ­Coalition for running a scare campaign on Labor, and said all of the ALP’s policies had the backing of industry groups.

“With this idea of a small target, we’ve got to rub out this idea,” Mr Clare said. “What we’re offering here is a smart target. It’s well developed policies. The childcare policy … it’s backed by (NSW Liberal Premier) Dom Perrottet. He said that’s a good idea.

“This is the Liberal Party desperate to run scare campaigns. The problem they’ve got is our policies are backed by people who know what needs to be done.”

Campaigning in Newcastle on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said Mr Albanese had “no solutions or policies”.